


Attached

by Miniatures



Series: Souls [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Drama & Romance, M/M, One Night Stands, Reincarnation, Sabriel - Freeform, Souls, these two are seriously star-crossed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-06
Updated: 2014-11-06
Packaged: 2018-02-24 08:59:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2575694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miniatures/pseuds/Miniatures
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gabriel thinks he's known Sam's soul too many times. Sam thinks the Crawford Hall janitor is cute.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Attached

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Español available: [Attached (traducción)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7564405) by [RaveBane8](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RaveBane8/pseuds/RaveBane8)



 

> _Time waits for no one_
> 
> _So do you wanna waste some time_
> 
> _Oh, oh, tonight?_
> 
> _Don't be afraid of tomorrow_
> 
> _Just take my hand, I'll make it feel_
> 
> _So much better tonight_
> 
> \- [Hurts](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CvuyaKmLnw)

 

He’d known, of course, that Sam had been born. How could he have fucking missed it? Gabriel may have been AWOL at the time, but Heaven had never known how to keep quiet about a job well done, and the birth of the Winchester brothers was most certainly that. The entire celestial community had been alight with the news— _the vessels are cometh, the end is nigh._

Gabriel had ignored it.

In India, his soul had borne the name Madhumati. She was the daughter of a prosperous cowherd, and Gabriel met her on the road as she delivered shipments of ghee to a neighbouring village. A young thing, plump and pretty and sharp-tongued. She knew him as the beggar to whom she snuck suckles of butter and crumbling chunks of her mother’s almond barfi. In hindsight, he blamed her for getting him hooked on sweets. 

Madhumati died soon after giving birth to her fifth child. By then Gabriel was running the god circuit with Kali, but still he toasted her death with desserts.

In France, then Gaul, his soul sat in a kind, scrawny boy named Caturix. Gabriel, playing at being a druid, hired him on as an apprentice. Neither of them, of course, had any idea what they were doing, and frequently accidentally summoned ancient deities, fairies, and monsters alike. Caturix got to learn firsthand how to deal with them—the first hunter-of-sorts to bear what would one day be Sam Winchester’s soul.

Caturix took his skills to battle when the Romans came, joining forces with the legendary Vercingetorix to bring the Empire to its knees. The boy didn’t live long enough to see his king throw down his weapons at Julius Caesar’s feet. But Gabriel did, and he may have whispered something incendiary in the Senate’s ear not long afterwards.

He fell in love with Aisling, an Irish psychic who told stories that made Gabriel laugh until he ached. She was killed for a witch at twenty-six.

He raised Bronwen, orphaned by the plague. He had angry sex with Koyah, a Haida prince. He was Ana’s dearest friend, Yukiko and Olamide’s sweetheart, the last person David saw before he was shipped to Normandy.

Whenever he could, Gabriel left before he had to watch them die.

Then at long last Sam was born, and this time the archangel knew exactly what was coming, knew he wanted no part of it. For the first time in centuries he resisted the pull of his soul. Let the Winchesters ride alone.

Gabriel had hoped he could stay hidden away in Crawford Hall. No such fucking luck.

Sam and Dean approached him as electricians, and Gabriel almost laughed, because they were still dressed as their backroad cowboy selves, all leather and denim and plaid. But he led them upstairs anyways. He was prepared to play their game, to drive them crazy, drive them away.

They reached the room, and as Dean poked around Sam began prodding the archangel about the death of that asshole professor from the other night. Their banter was light and easy and holy shit, Gabriel hadn’t expected Sam to be so damn charming. It was as familiar as it was new—the people who carried Gabriel’s soul were each unlike the other, but that ease always remained.

Sam smiled through his questions, a wry, sneaking smile that almost looked involuntary. His eyes, brilliant sunkissed green, never left Gabriel’s face. The archangel wished he could stop flirting back, because this was Lucifer’s human. His soul, but his brother’s body. Sam was made to ruin the world, to be scorched out of his own walking corpse to make way for the Devil—to end and be ended.

Gabriel couldn’t get attached.

—

Sam, for his part, was nothing short of awed. Awed by how attractive he found the short, unassuming man in front of him, by how _easy_ this felt. He’d never acted on any same-sex attraction he’d felt in the past, but who was he to turn down something so comfortable? Sam didn’t get _comfortable,_ as a rule.

He almost forgot, as he took in the janitor’s wide grin, his laughing eyes, that he was questioning the man for a case. For a moment, he really was an electrician, curious about a strange suicide. And for a moment, he really thought it could work. He could grab a drink with the janitor that night, or after the case was wrapped up. He could go home with him.  Find out what those lips tasted like.  Run his hands over that lithe, pudgy body and lose himself in something tangible and exciting and raw.   

He could sleep in the next morning, not have to worry about where he's going. Watch the janitor wake up, blink bleary gold eyes at him and curve a smile from the other end of the pillow.  They could grab breakfast and trade numbers and maybe, just maybe, this could continue. Maybe Sam could have something to come back to for once.

He meant to ask him out before he left, but Dean rushed him away. 

Then Bobby came. He and Dean relayed their stories and Sam tried to keep his affection for the snarky janitor out of his voice, but he got the feeling it came across anyways.

That didn’t stop Bobby and Dean from realizing that the janitor was what they were hunting. He was the Trickster. He was the one they had to kill. And Sam kicked himself, because _of course_. Of course this was how that would work out. He couldn’t get involved. He couldn’t get attached. He wasn’t allowed to have something to come back to.

—

In his apartment, his fingers suckled by illusory women and his stomach full of sugar, Gabriel thought: _This is all I get to have._

—

Sam knew that the Trickster couldn’t be trusted. He knew that his ignorance as to how much they know was the only upper hand they could hope to have. He knew that his, Dean, and Bobby's plan was good, that it could work.

Still, he found himself walking towards Crawford Hall late that night.

The Trickster was mopping a hallway on the second floor. Sam felt a jolt in his stomach as the janitor heard his approach, looked up with a sideways grin.

“Hey, kiddo," he leaned an elbow on the handle of his mop and cocked out his hip. "What's up?”

Sam didn’t stop. He didn’t slow down. Not until he got to the Trickster, until he grabbed his face in his hands and pulled him closer, crushed his mouth in a wild kiss.

It didn’t last. Sam didn’t let it. He dropped the janitor, leaving the shorter man flushed and out of breath.

"What," he panted, "the hell was that?"   

 Sam touched his fingers to his lips, ducked his head. "I just… I just wanted that. Once. Okay?"     

He wasn’t sure that made sense. But the Trickster’s features softened, something sad passed over them, and Sam knew that he understood. 

Sam nodded and made to leave, but the Trickster stopped him with a hand on his elbow.

"Sam… wait."

The hunter turned. The Trickster smiled shyly up at him. "It… it doesn't have to be just once."     

Sam shook his head. The janitor shrugged. "Not if you don't want it to."          

Sam kept shaking his head. He felt like a puppy, probably looked a little like one too. He couldn’t meet the janitor's eye, not until the shorter man reached out a hand and gently held his chin in place, tilted his head so their gazes met. And damn, the Trickster may have been a murderer, but he had beautiful eyes. There was something old there, something hard and soft and wild and calm all at once. And Sam couldn’t breathe, because there was deep, endless affection there too, and it was all for him.

"Sam…" the Trickster breathed. "You—”     

He choked on whatever it was he wanted to say, but that didn’t matter, because Sam thought he knew. They were more than this. Both of them. There was something larger there that they couldn’t escape, perhaps something even more looming than whatever had been cruel enough to let them meet under such circumstances. But that didn’t matter, because they were there, and they were together, and just for tonight the rest of that could just go to Hell.

They kissed again, and neither of them were sure who initiated it.

The Trickster was tender… more tender than Sam had expected. He was soft and he was gentle and he took everything Sam threw at him with a moan and a silent begging for more. And Sam was all teeth, rough and bruising, calloused fingers and sharp movements.           

They were caught in a flux of give and take, bite and suck, pushing each other to their limits and drawing back, keeping everything just shy of that hairbreadth's horizon between pleasure and pain. And it _was_ painful, because both of them knew that the sun must rise. But it was beautiful, because just then they could forget about it.    

They came apart in each other's arms, and it was almost too intimate the way the Trickster babbled sweet nonsense in Sam's ear, the way they clutched at one another as they eased each other through their orgasms. Sam was only half conscious when he pressed his lips to the Trickster's neck, afterglow muddying his reasons for muttering too-tender things against his jaw. They fell asleep together. Or at least Sam thought they did. He couldn’t be sure, because when he woke it was to find himself in his motel bed, clean and clothed and inconspicuous.      

 

They went through with the plan. Dean stabbed the Trickster. The rest of the world, that bigger thing, it still won in the end. But Sam was grateful that they escaped it for a night. Even if it only was one night.     

—

Gabriel stood over the flickering image of his corpse. He closed his eyes. He couldn’t do this again. Not with Sam.

_That was stupid. That was really fucking stupid._

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Oh look, Australia got a sequel! I might write more in this 'verse, I really like the idea of Sam and Gabriel being bonded like this. These two, I swear to god, I try to write nice fluffy things about them and instead I wind up with bittersweet sex and star-crossed soulmate bullshit. 
> 
> EXTRA SPECIAL SHOUT OUT to GreyMichaela, both for beta'ing and being partially responsible for the latter half of the story via one of our spontaneous angsty writing sessions. I mostly just used the parts that I wrote, but a few of her glorious lines are in there too (with her permission of course).


End file.
